Identify Claims and Evidence · CARS

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Read the passage and answer the question. In literary criticism, the "unreliable narrator" is sometimes treated as a clever trick that simply surprises the reader at the end. But unreliability is more than a plot device; it is a method for revealing how people justify themselves. When a narrator's account conflicts with observable events, the gap exposes the narrator's needs—fear, vanity, loyalty—more clearly than a straightforward confession would. This is why unreliable narration often appears in stories about social status. A narrator might describe a humiliating encounter as a victory, not to deceive the reader so much as to protect a fragile self-image. The reader's recognition of the distortion becomes part of the story's meaning: it demonstrates how language can function as self-defense. Some readers object that unreliability makes interpretation too subjective, since one can always claim the narrator is lying. Yet authors usually provide constraints. Contradictions recur; other characters react in ways that undermine the narrator; physical details do not match the narrator's claims. These signals do not eliminate ambiguity, but they prevent unreliability from becoming an all-purpose excuse. Unreliable narration also invites ethical attention. If a narrator rationalizes cruelty as necessity, the reader must decide whether to accept the rationalization. The technique thus trains readers to notice the stories people tell to make their actions appear inevitable. To reduce unreliability to a twist, then, is to miss its analytic power. It is a way of making self-justification legible. Which statement does the author offer as evidence for the argument?

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